The following exchange be tween former New Jersey Govs. Brendan T. Byrne and Tom Kean took place in a teleconference on Tuesday.

Q: A tuition hike at Rutgers and a rent increase for student housing raises the question of whether the university is starting to price out the very people a state university is intended to serve.

KEAN: In general, when universities are forced to raise tuition to keep up with competitive faculty salaries or student costs, the state should be ready with additional scholarship money for qualified students who can't afford the increase. Many can afford it, but some can't, and those should never be denied an education because of a tuition hike.

BYRNE: I think universities are making more grants and loans available for students who really need it.

KEAN: But the most important money is the scholarship money the state makes available through Tuition Aid Grants and the Education Opportunity Fund. Those programs are designed to allow any student of ability to attend a state college for which he or she is qualified. Those programs ought to increase if tuition is increased, so as not to price out needy students of ability.

BYRNE: I think that's happening. Everywhere we go, we run into people who say, Gee, there's not enough money to adequately run a group home for the retarded, or not enough to run something else - all very sympathetic types of things. And yet the same people don't want to pay any more taxes. It comes back to my old Hudson County line: If you're not getting something for nothing, you're not getting your fair share.

KEAN: A number of students look at the sticker price of college, and think they can't go there. What they don't realize is that the majority of students at those colleges are on scholarship of some sort. Seventy percent of our students at Drew have some scholarship aid, running the gamut from full scholarships to a few thousand dollars.

BYRNE: Drew is worth it, even at full tuition.

KEAN: But if New Jersey high school students realized that scholarship help is available at any number of our schools, a lot more would go to college.

BYRNE: And most students also work part time.

KEAN: They combine scholarships, jobs and loans; you put the three together. It's hard, but it's possible for any kid in New Jersey who has the ability.

Q: The perennial debate over the date of New Jersey's primary elections has resurfaced. Should the date remain the first Tuesday in June, or is there a benefit to the state in moving the primary earlier in the year?

KEAN: I think there would be a tremendous benefit to holding it earlier. The politicians are selfish. They keep that date because it helps them with local elections, but the state gets left out of the whole presidential debate. The candidates don't come here, except to take money out. They don't hear our problems, and they don't feel they have to do anything for New Jersey. It's a problem.

BYRNE: In 2004, only the Democratic primary is relevant. If New Jersey were to have an early primary, it would help a more liberal Democratic candidate, because New Jersey would tend to favor a more liberal candidate. For that reason alone, I'd like to see an earlier primary. But people can stop reading here, because we're not going to get one.

KEAN: You're right. The local politicians and county freeholders like the way it is. The Legislature should take the bull by the horns and move the primary so the people of New Jersey get a chance to participate in a presidential election.

Q: Gov. James E. McGreevey has come under fire for a succession of seemingly thoughtless missteps. Excoriated for using taxpayer money to go to Ireland last year, he now is criticized for allowing a labor union to foot the bill for a vacation in Puerto Rico. He also has weighed in on the controversy over a planned Palestinian conference at Rutgers, an issue on which he needn't have even commented. Is the governor getting the best from his advisers — and from the press?

BYRNE: Let's take the latest thing, which was the Puerto Rican trip sponsored by the Longshoremen. If the sponsor had been the bar association or the medical association or the Chamber of Commerce, I don't think there would be a peep out of anybody. But it's easy to make a devil out of a labor union, which I think is unfair. There are a lot of good people in that and in every other labor union. But if he'd gone on a cruise with the bar association, there would have been no problem.

KEAN: If he'd gone on a cruise with trial lawyers, you'd have had a problem with me. This isn't just any labor union, but one under federal investigation. While the governor did nothing illegal, to call it a vacation and take along his wife and child was not wise. I think he's just got to be more sensitive toward perceptions - or somebody on his staff has to - when opportunities like these arise.

BYRNE: There have been plenty of major firms under investigation. That should not be used against every member of, say, an accounting firm.

KEAN: If he accepted a trip from Tyco or Enron, I'd be just as critical.

BYRNE: The people around him have just been through the torture of getting a budget passed, and I don't think their focus has been on what public reaction might be toward a trip to Puerto Rico to address a labor union. And I do think it's grossly unfair to tag every member of a labor union as evil because somebody is legitimately investigating them.

KEAN: But you need to be a little wary before you accept union money or a paid vacation. It's nothing illegal, but when it came up, somebody in his office should have said, "No. If you want to go down and speak, go. Then come home and take your vacation, or let the Democratic state committee pay for it." Somebody should have raised a red flag.

BYRNE: Both you and I were told to stay close to home during the first term in office, and we both did that.

KEAN: Yes, that was good advice.

BYRNE: But the way the press goes after every little thing is discouraging.

KEAN: But the best way to avoid that is not to give the press anything to go after.

BYRNE: The press used to criticize me for going out of state - even to New York for a half-hour television interview - and it's gone from bad to worse.